Madness
by M.R.H.I
Summary: Draco understands madness. He's in love with Potter, after all.


**Title**: Madness  
**Rating**: NC-17  
**Pairing**: Harry/Draco  
**Word Count**: ~5000  
**Summary**: Draco understands madness. He's in love with Potter, after all.  
**Warnings**: infidelity (because Rowling should've expected this when she married Harry off), and umm, pr0n!  
**Beta**: Many thanks and kisses to CuriousDreamWeaver, who is Just Amazing!  
**Notes**: This fic is partial inspired by the song "The Nicest Thing" by Kate Nash (listen to it as you read!)

The other part that inspired this fic is this recent, incomprehensible lack of bottom!emotionally-tortured!unrequited!love!Draco!

Enjoy :)

-

Draco has known for a long time that he is in love with Harry Potter.

In hindsight, it is inevitable, he thinks. There has always been too much of that mad passion between them. He used to believe it was hate, but he knows better, now.

Potter is married. Happily, if the photographs hanging all over his cubicle are anything to go by. Draco hates that he has to see Potter everyday, hates seeing Potter sit at his desk covered by parchments and frames of his life with that Weasley girl (oh, right, she's a Potter, now). He hates that Potter is his partner, and irrationally, he is glad for it. It gives him an excuse to see the man at least once everyday, an excuse to talk and laugh and watch him as he smiles and flicks his hair out of his face.

Draco feels something strange whenever his eyes latch onto Potter, like a part of him is bleeding and healing all at once. And perhaps he is a bit masochistic for liking the feeling of having his heart wrung out dry, but he also knows that it is impossible for him to be any other way. He is in love with Harry Potter, partner in crime, happily married man, and, as Potter once claimed, his friend.

Draco never realized how awful that word is, friend. It is full of implications, of hopelessness and wistfulness and possibilities of nothing. Yes, Draco is a friend. He visits Potter and plays with his firstborn, who throws up on his expensive Ralph Lauren suit and laughs. He goes out with Potter and they get a drink after work. He listens to Potter as he talks excitedly about his wife and how she's pregnant again. Draco is not surprised. The Weasleys are practically a species made for breeding. The vicious thought is unfair, but Weasley has Potter, and he has nothing, so he rather thinks he is entitled to be bitter and unfair.

So Draco carries on trying to be Potter's friend. He is there when Potter got hurt after a particularly deadly assignment. He sits in the chair next to his bed and waits for Potter to wake up. His hand clasps Potter's tightly as he struggles to remain emotionless. He can't handle emotions right now, not when they are so precarious and volatile. He keeps his mind focused on anger, thinking of how _stupid_ Potter is, throwing himself into danger like that.

_Protecting me_, Draco thinks, and the thought does nothing to ease the curling knot sitting heavily in his guts.

Hours that seem like eternity slip by before Potter groans and opens his eyes. Draco's hand instinctively curls tighter around Potter's own. Potter blinks for a moment in incomprehension, and then he sees Draco, and he smiles.

Draco is so relieved he thinks he will cry, but he doesn't. When he speaks, his voice is cold and accusatory, "Why?"

Potter pulls Draco closer until Draco can smell the horrible smell of antiseptic on the bandages around his neck. His heart speeds like a train about to crash when Harry murmurs, his voice hoarse from disuse,

"You're important to me."

Potter lets go, and when Draco finally leans back, he sees that Potter is asleep.

-

Potter is having troubles with his wife. Draco knows this when he walks past his cubicle one day and misses a framed photograph hurling toward him. It hits the wall instead and shatters into pieces next to him. The other Aurors lean out of their cubicles curiously, but Draco waves them away with a shake of his head.

"Too early to try and kill co-workers, don't you think, Potter?" Draco comments, picking up the photo and shaking the glass off.

Potter's face is pulled into lines of frustration and sleep deprivation. When Potter looks at him, some of those lines fade away.

"Sorry," the man says tersely. His shoulders are squared, the tension obvious in the way he carries himself. Draco drapes himself over a comfortable chair and proceeds to silently stare at Potter.

Eventually Potter cracks. "Ginny... she's angry at me." His tone is full of defensiveness and confusion.

"At you? The apple of her eyes, her knight in shining armor, the hero from her innocent years? What could she _possibly_ have to be angry at you?" Draco deadpans.

"Don't be such an arse," Potter snaps. "You don't know anything."

Draco throws up his hands, exasperated. "Let me guess, you've been working too much and she wants some time with you? She's tired of playing housewife, tired of being jealous of all the witches that keep eying you despite your status as a married man? She's sick of taking care of the kids while you go gallivanting about waving your sword at evil-doers and she wants you to throw out the diaper once in a while?"

The deep blush that appears on Potter's cheeks is confirmation enough.

"I do not gallivant about waving my sword," Potter mumbles, flopping down into his chair and sending a few parchments floating off his entirely too messy desk.

Draco waves a hand. "Sword, wand, whatever."

It is another long minute before Potter speaks. "Ginny's pregnant."

Draco raises an eyebrow. His heart is galloping like a startled horse. "Another one?"

"I - I didn't mean for it to happen," Potter says, burying his face in his hands as if the idea causes him tremendous pain. "I was so drunk after that assignment with the cursed necklace, and Ginny was upset at me. We were fighting, and then somehow we -" Potter finishes his sentence in an incoherent mumble.

When Potter turns his head up and looks at Draco, his face is full of misery. "I don't want another kid. Two, that's enough. I hardly have time to look after them all, and Ginny's insistent on rejoining the Harpies. She's really angry that she's pregnant again. I - I don't know what to do."

Draco doesn't want to see Potter seeming so lost, not when there isn't anything he can do to make it better. He is horrible with words, and even worse when it comes to offering physical comfort.

"Perhaps you should consider aborting the pregnancy," Draco says helpfully, but the horrified look on Potter's face is far from the expected reaction. Wrong thing to say, then.

They sit in silence, Draco watching Potter as the man stares into the distance.

Eventually, Potter whispers, eyes never leaving that invisible point in space.

"Ginny wants to." Their eyes connect, and Draco's breath hitches at the vulnerability and misery he sees. "But I don't."

When Draco reaches over and pulls Potter's hand into his, he finds that comfort isn't that hard to express, after all.

He says nothing, but the gratefulness in Potter's eyes is enough to let him know he's done the right thing.

-

Potter's wife decides to keep it. Draco finds this out next week when he comes back from a lone mission and Potter tells him in a hollow voice. Draco is curious as to why Potter is not pleased, but he doesn't want to meddle. He already feels like a heel for feeling happy at the way Potter's perfect life is falling apart.

The next few months do not look any better for Potter, who seeks him out more and more, oftentimes to force him into getting a drink after work. Or a dozen, in Potter's case. Draco wonders how the man stay sober during the daytime, since it seems almost every day that Potter insists they go to the pub so Potter can bemoan his miserable state of personal affairs.

His wife is getting increasingly upset at him. Draco isn't surprised. Any wife would be when her husband goes and gets smashed after work instead of coming home and helping her with the kids. Draco doesn't say anything, though. He knows Potter understands perfectly what he is doing. In a way, he almost believes that Potter regrets it a little - his marriage, his attitude toward it, and lately, his guilt for the things he's done and not done. It is like watching an inevitable train crash and having no ability to intervene.

He tries to be a good friend and brings up the subject of Potter's self-imposed destruction, but the man flushes red and tells him he is neither Ron nor Hermione, and thus should keep his mouth shut about Potter's life.

That is a Friday. The next morning, Draco opens the door of his flat to find Potter standing there, looking like death warmed over. He peers at Draco through the wild bangs, green eyes red-rimmed and face entirely too pale to be healthy.

"Draco -" he begins, and bites his lower lip. The gesture is both vulnerable and remorseful. Draco unclenches his fists, and against all logic and reason, motions Potter to come side. When Potter gives him a quavering smile, Draco bitterly finds himself forgiving him without so much as a word exchanged.

They end up sitting in Draco's living room, each with a glass of Firewhisky in hand. He sees Potter stealing glances at him, but he says nothing. He knows before Potter opens his mouth that the man is only desperate for someone to listen to his problems.

Sure enough.

"We keep fighting," Potter says after he knocks back the first drink and pours himself another one. Draco wants to laugh, the humor directing at himself. Will his heart ever learn? He finishes his glass and fills another. If he is going to listen to Potter ramble about his marriage, then he is going to get good and pissed.

Potter's words turn to slurs as the bottle of Firewhisky empties at a strangely rapid rate. Draco is light-headed himself. In this state it is definitely easier to hear Potter rant. The man certainly makes no sense, and how silly is that, when this matter of the missus is sensibly simple.

He tells Potter so, the logic of it perfectly clear in his mind, and the man laughs. It is a low, rumbling sound that makes Draco's toes curl and his stomach warmer than it already is. Unconsciously, helplessly, he leans closer.

Potter reaches forward for the bottle, and somehow the respectable distance between them vanishes like an illusion. In one moment Potter's lips curve to speak, and in the next, they are against Draco's own, warm and soft and needy. Draco feels heat twisting up his body and burning him from the inside out. Potter's body is against his, hard and muscled and so, so hot.

It is a fantasy, he is certain, hands rising to tangle in that impossibly wild mess of hair, the glass falling imperceptibly from his fingers. Draco thinks he is going to pass out, Potter's taste is too real, his presence is too real, his weight, his heat, his skin. They are like flames licking up his body in shuddering flicks, reducing him to an uncontrollable, shivering mess. Does Potter know he has Draco taken apart and undone beneath his urgent caresses? Does Potter even care?

Draco whimpers, a noise lost in his throat as Potter's hand opens his trousers and then - _oh merciful gods_ the touch is electric. He is embarrassed at the way he jerks and arches off the couch, knocking his head against Potter's shoulder quite painfully. Potter's hand wraps around his cock and strokes clumsily. It is possibly the worst handjob he's ever gotten in his life – there is no rhythm, no method, and there might just be a bit of too much shaking for it to go smoothly – but Draco moans and begs and says many, many incoherent things so that Potter would just keep doing those silly up-slip-and-down motions.

They are kissing again, and it occurs to Draco that he should do something instead of mumbling like a fool; something that he's wanted to do for such a long, long time.

In a rather uncoordinated move he manages to push Potter to his back, except that causes him to slip and falls side-way off the couch. Potter's hand curls around his upper arm, stopping his fall, and their eyes inadvertently meet.

For a timeless moment, Draco could almost believe they are two men discovering for the first time something rare and precious. He could almost let himself believe that no one can look at him like that and not be falling in love, that no one can smile so sweetly and not be hoping he'd melt at the very sight.

In that irrational, brief instance, Draco thinks he can fool himself into believing that no one can kiss him so tenderly and not mean it.

The burning in his chest is not quite so comfortable now. Draco closes his damp eyes and slides his lips down Potter's neck, hands rising beneath his shirt until he finds the muscled chest. Now it's Potter turn to moan, a sound so deep and so heavily laced with lust that it spurs him to bend down and find Potter's member with his mouth. Now the sounds are ten times sweeter. Draco focuses on those moans, falling from Potter's lips like the most potent Amortentia, ensnaring his heart and body in a terrible, vice-like grip and Potter, the bastard, never even knows it.

He wishes he could fathom the turmoil of emotions rising inside him as he sucks Potter to completion. It feels like a sandstorm, or a violent whirlwind at sea, overpowering his senses, making him helpless and desperate to cling to Potter, to bind Potter and make him feel the way he makes Draco feel.

But Draco is sure it's impossible for anyone to feel remotely what he does Potter. It is indescribable, how it breaks and builds him all at once with just one gesture Potter makes. It is cruel, the way it holds him tethering on a flimsy string of hope day after day, played like a puppet to Potter's rough, oblivious fingers.

This is madness, it is desperation, it is plain masochism, the excruciating torture that he's made to beg for even as he screams himself hoarse into the deafening silence:

_Why do I love you, Harry Potter? Why can't I let you go? Why do I keep hoping you would love me back?_

_Why, why why..._

Potter makes a low, urgent noise and comes down Draco's throat. He swallows it all, sucking and licking at Potter's cock until it softens.

Now Potter is stroking his hair, is pulling him up, is wiping his tears. Draco doesn't understand, doesn't know why Potter is carrying him into his room, is tucking him into his bed, is being so gentle is making it so difficult for Draco to let go and move on when Potter doesn't love him back.

No matter what he does, Potter won't love him back. Potter is only capable of crushing his heart, of walking away and never glancing back, not even once.

How many nights he's lain dreaming about how their first time would go, and never, ever once did he imagine how much it would hurt once it's over.

-

Draco resigns from his job.

He is currently standing in the middle of his living room, staring at the boxes of belongings scattered all over the floor. These will be transported to the villa in France later. His Portkey - a small letter opener in his hand - is to activate in a few minutes, taking him to Nice. His mother is ecstatic that he's finally agreed to come and live with her. He thinks he will be too, with time.

The couch is the only thing he's not taking with him. He can hardly look at it, not when the mere thought of it tugs at his all too vivid memories with an alarming speed and accuracy. Draco blinks rapidly. The sun is too bright, it's making his eyes hurt and watery. Why on earth did he not close the curtains? Silly him -

Draco gives a small jump. Someone is banging at the door.

Draco hesitates. No one is supposed to know he's leaving the country today but Kingsley, and somehow he doubts the man would take a Tuesday afternoon off to say farewell to his subordinate.

That thought is cut off by a loud voice echoing through the door, temporarily stopping his heart for a beat before sending it speeding miles a minute.

"Draco! Open the door! I know you're in there!"

Draco has to lean back against the couch when his knees give out suddenly. What is Potter doing here? _Why_ is he here _now_, when he's been avoiding Draco since their encounter over a week ago? It would be too cruel of Potter to come here for a final laugh before he leaves, and it would be just equally cruel if Potter is here to ask him to stay. There is no possible way they could go back to the way they were before.

Draco is mildly surprised to realize that he doesn't want to, either.

"Draco! If you don't open this door this instant, I'm going to break it!"

Draco has hardly time to register those words before he hears a loud explosion and then hurried footsteps. In no time at all, Harry Potter marches into his living room, debris of Draco's obviously ruined door and walls clinging to his body and smokes trailing from his robes. He looks as if he is wading through a battlefield.

Potter's eyes travel the space of the room, and Draco watches as his face turns from surprise to anger to determination before Potter's gaze settles on him.

"No," Potter practically snarls the word as he steps toward Draco. Draco is startled when Potter grabs his arms hard and kisses him hard enough to bruise.

The smell of smoke overwhelms his senses. For a moment Draco is only able to stand and let Potter kiss him like his life depends on it. It is horribly beautiful, the way Draco instantly recognizes Potter's lips, as if he's spent his entirely life mapping out their shape. Potter is too passionate, and for the umpteenth time Draco finds that it is too easy to fall under his spell.

With a willpower he doesn't even know he possesses, Draco pushes Potter away hard.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Now it's Draco's turn to snarl.

Potter's eyes narrow, and if it's possible the fires in them blaze even more fiercely than before. "Were you planning to tell me you were leaving at all?" Accusatory is too light a word to describe Potter's tone. Betrayed, perhaps.

"Not really, no," Draco replies coldly, lips still tingling from Potter's heated kiss. He wishes his body would stop responding to Potter's touch like a starved plant in the desert. It is almost humiliating, how helpless he is when it comes to the man.

Potter is clenching his fists as if he is trying to stop himself from doing something stupid. Viciously, Draco is tempted to gloat the man into hit him. Aggression is something he can handle. It is most certainly better than this uncontrollable urge to push Potter to floor and fuck him senseless.

"Why are you being such a twat?" Potter grits out.

Draco barks out a laugh. "_Me_? I'm not the moron who decided to cheat on his wife and pretended it didn't happen!"

"Maybe if you hadn't been so willing, then maybe I wouldn't have!"

The words stab at him like a poisoned dart. They shouldn't hurt this much, Potter's stupid words, but they do. Goddamnit.

"Fuck you, Potter."

In the span of hardly a second, Potter is pushing him back onto the couch.

"Let's," he growls and the next thing Draco knows, they are both clawing at each other's clothes and skin like animals.

Draco can hardly call it romantic, the way Potter bites and sucks at his neck and grinds his hip against his almost violently. When Potter's pants and trousers get stuck around his knees, Draco makes an impatient noise and fumbles for his wand. Potter's moan is darkly pleasing when they are finally skin to skin. Draco draws both their cocks together with one hand and thrusts, panting harshly as Potter's fingers dig into his hip with brutal pressure. Draco's free arm winds around Potter's neck, scratching into the skin with every arching motion Potter makes until he feels blood under his nails.

It is fitting, Draco later thinks, how easily they hurt one another, how funny that their entire relationship is founded and maintained on violence. It seems like they are incapable of holding themselves back, that no matter what they do, they would somehow end up inflicting pain onto one another, in the way they fight, the way they hex and curse and try to kill one another.

There is always a perverse part of their relationship that feeds on this pain, even when they kiss, when they hold onto one another intimately. Neither of them could be gentle, and Draco supposes it is this wild, volatile passion that draws him so irrevocably to Potter. Maybe the man feels the same way, too.

"Lube," Potter says low in his throat, sweats dripping from his hair. Draco utters a frustrated groan and summons something. Vaguely he hears one of the boxes bursts open, and then something smacks into his palm.

Sandalwood hand cream. That will work. Evidently Potter thinks so too, because he grabs at it so fast that for a second it jounces in Potter's palm. Draco can't help but laughs at Potter's fumbling fingers trying to get a hold of the tube.

Potter makes an annoyed face and shuts him up with an open-mouthed kiss, and then more definitely when he begins working his fingers in and out of Draco's arse. Now the room is filled with the sounds of their groans and breathless shouts.

"Fuck me already," Draco growls, thrusting up against Potter's pelvis. Potter jerks in surprise, fingers shoving into him more harshly, but Draco doesn't care. He likes the feel of them inside him, working him open with a furious passion. He likes that he is the one to make Potter sweat and bleed and gasp so beautifully. For a brief, crazy moment he wonders if Potter looks like this when he fucks his wife, completely uninhibited, focused and yet totally lost in a mirage of lust and violence.

No, Potter probably fucks his wife tenderly, sweetly, and treats her with care and love.

_Stop torturing yourself, Draco Malfoy._

"Now, Potter," Draco urges, wrapping his legs around Potter's hips and arching off the couch. Potter makes a choking noise and in a dizzying moment, is breaching him.

It's been a while, so things are burning more sharply than he's anticipated, but all Draco wants is for the man to be inside him. Curling his arms around Potter's neck to get some leverage, Draco lifts his hips off and sends Potter propelling fully into him with a single, fast thrust.

"Fuck, Draco -" His name rolls off Potter's tongue in a startled, harsh gasp. It turns him on so bad, he can't help it - he needs Potter to move.

Potter gets the hint when Draco undulates his hips and begins pummeling into him in earnest. It is fast and unrestrained, the way Potter thrusts into him, his cock rubbing his inner channel, igniting his nerve endings and sending shocking pleasure rocketing through his body like fireworks.

And it goes on, over and over again, until Draco is pushing upward with every thrust Potter makes, meeting him halfway with such force that Potter's balls would slap against his arse. Their gasps rise and fall in an endless cacophony of sounds, mingling with the audible noises their bodies make.

It is madness, how much Draco loves this Harry Potter, hovering above him, tearing him open, tormenting him and making him feel like he is alive, _finally_.

Draco sobs loudly when Potter takes his cock into his hand and strokes him toward a fast and furious orgasm. He can feel his arse clenching around Potter's hardness as he keeps on coming, and in the midst of that overwhelming pleasure, he hears Potter moan and shout and come, shuddering as he holds himself still and deep in Draco's body.

Potter turns his face and kisses him, and Draco is surprised to see how desperately Potter is clinging to him, mouth covering his with need until he can't breathe, and Potter still refuses to let go.

Once again, Draco finds himself shoving Potter away. This time, the man refuses to bulge.

"Draco, look at me," Potter says, and something in his voice makes the stubbornness in Draco melt away. He looks.

Potter's face is flushed, and in the bright light of the afternoon, he looks ethereal, with his skin all gold and glistening and his eyes inhumanly green. At that moment, Draco hates himself for loving Potter just a little bit more.

"I'm getting a divorce."

For a second, Draco thinks he's hallucinating. Potter stares at him, face serious and sincere. There is some sort of hopefulness in his expression.

Draco can't take this. With as much force as he could, he surges upward and throws Potter off him, clambering as far away from the man as possible.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Draco hears himself shout through the sounds of his pounding heart. _Divorce?_

Potter looks like a kicked puppy – there are no other words for it – as he kneels naked on the other end of the couch. "You asked me once why I put so much of my time into work instead of being at home taking care of Ginny and the kids." Potter gives a harsh laugh, raising one shaky hand to cover his face.

"It's you, Draco." Potter is staring at him again. Draco can hardly breathe, waiting for the man to speak next. This is completely surreal. "What we did - it made me realize what I never wanted to believe in the first place."

Potter takes a hold of his hand, pulling them close. Draco is too bewildered, too terrified, to struggle away.

"You love me, don't you?" Potter asks in a whisper, looking at Draco as if he is afraid of what Draco might say.

Draco wants to deny it. It is easy - _no Potter, I don't love you nor will I ever_ - but inexplicably, the words refuse to form.

Potter smiles, and there is a tint of sadness playing in the corners of his eyes. "I do, too."

In a timeless moment, Draco thinks he must have stopped breathing and passed out. It must be a dream, except Potter is very warm and very real and so, so very sincere.

"You're lying," is the only thing Draco can say.

"No," Potter shakes his head, holding Draco's face in place, staring into his eyes as if willing him to believe. "A part of me has always known, but I was too stupid to listen to myself. I'm getting a divorce... I've already moved out. Draco, please don't go. Stay with me." A pause. "Move in with me."

Draco feels dizzy. This cannot be happening, Potter is not serious – but Draco can see that he is, and that makes it even more mortifying. All these years he's spent wondering, loving Potter, tormented by thoughts of him with someone else and yet expecting nothing in return. Now that it's finally happening, _Harry Potter loves him_, he can't seem to be able to wrap his mind around it.

"You – you're mad," Draco says shakily, even as his hands come up to pull Potter closer.

The man falls into his arms willingly.

"Maybe, but sometimes love makes a person a little mad, doesn't it?"

Draco gives a small laugh. Doesn't he know it.

"Yes," Draco says, and that one word seems to hold all the implications Harry needs.

Harry smiles again, a genuine, heart-stopping smile, and Draco thinks madness is not so bad, in the end.

_Fini._


End file.
